In today’s business world, where customers have seemingly infinite choices and near-instant access to alternatives, how a business delivers are often just as important as what it delivers. That’s where Customer Experience (CX) comes in — not as a one-off project, training initiative or checking the box accomplishment, but as a core business strategy.
And yet, many businesses and organizations still treat CX as a support function or a temporary campaign. They launch loyalty programs or conduct customer service training only to shift resources elsewhere when the next initiative takes priority. But CX isn’t a feature to be turned on or off — it’s the connective arm between your brand, your operations, and your customer relationships. And when it’s mismanaged or even sidelined, the results can be disastrous and frustrating for businesses and leaders.
What Is CX as a Strategy?
Customer Experience as a strategy means deliberately designing how customers perceive and interact with your business — across every touchpoint — and aligning your operations, technology, culture, and leadership accordingly.
It’s not just about customer surveys. It’s about embedding customer-centric thinking into every department:
- Is your business designed with customers’ expectations, problems and delight in mind?
- Are your customer service teams empowered and trained to resolve issues seamlessly?
- Does your sales and marketing delivery messaging consistent with what your product or service delivers?
- Do your operations ensure easy to do business, timely delivery, and smooth support when needed?
- Do business owners and leadership “walks the talk,” recognizing that CX is linked to business outcomes and financial success?
It’s a long-term, enterprise-wide commitment — not a one-year roadmap or a flashy app.
The Strategic Role of CX: More Than a Differentiator
In competitive markets, CX is no longer just a differentiator — it’s often a qualifier. Studies have found that 73% of customers say experience is an important factor in their purchasing decisions, right behind price and product quality. Moreover, 32% of all customers indicated they would stop doing business with a brand they loved after just one bad experience.
My clients who invest in their customer experience consistently outperform their competition. They see higher customer retention, increased in new customers and greater customer lifetime value.
CX vs. Other Business Strategies
Customer Experience isn’t the only path to success and is not the only strategy, but it’s increasingly the glue that will hold your business together. You can’t have a product/service-led strategy if your customers don’t understand or trust your product. A price-driven strategy fails if your customer’s ordering process is painful. Even the best real estate locations won’t matter if your customer experience or customer service is forgettable.
For many businesses, customer experience includes onboarding, training, account management, support, invoicing, and more. Again, my clients and business owners are achieving revenue growth rates 5-10% higher than their competitors. Why?
Because they make decisions involving building relationships first, getting their employee engaged in the process, strong servant leadership and providing memorable customer experiences. They realize that the lack of those decisions and implementation — will cost their business thousands of dollars in lost repeat business and word of mouth goodwill in their community.
Why CX Must Be Strategy. (Not Just a one-time initiative)
Here’s where many businesses stumble: they approach CX as a campaign, not a must-do strategy. Many companies struggle because they entrust their CX to temporary initiatives. If you want to get results, CX requires dedicated training of staff and leaders with customer insight, journey mapping, soft skills, coaching and accountability, hiring the right people and communicating effectively to create a winning team culture— not just task masters and transactions.
A Customer Experience Strategy Means:
- You must have clear ownership from business owners, managers and staff in all departments.
- End-to-end mapping of every customer touchpoint.
- Measurement and feedback from customers as well as from all staff members.
- Accountability and governance: CX embedded in strategy reviews and performance accountability for managers and staff.
- Culture: Hiring the right people, making your core values actionable, on-going training, reward incentives, and leadership modeling of customer-first behaviors.
Customer Experience is a Journey — starting with awareness, training, moving to coordination, and then to implementation. Businesses and companies must evolve toward a customer- wide experience lasting culture
Final Thought
If your company’s CX strategy lives in an employee handbook, mission statement on a wall, slide deck or in a marketing campaign, it’s not a strategy — it’s a slogan. Your customer experience must move from boardroom or business owner rhetoric to operational reality. That requires training, sustained focus, professional expertise, and alignment across your entire business.
Because in the end, customers don’t remember your mission statement or marketing slogan. They remember how you made them feel. Now that’s Magical! Need help? Contact John today for a FREE Strategy Call or availability to speak to your leaders and team. www.JohnFormica.com
John Formica is America’s and Australia’s Customer Experience Coach, team culture experience expert, keynote speaker, and Top 10 Global Thought Leader and Influencer on Customer Loyalty. For information on customer experience programs, leadership training, team culture, business growth, how to find and hire great people and tailored training programs just for you or to book John to speak at your next event, contact 704-965-4090 or visit our website at JohnFormica.com.