Customer experience, or CX, encompasses all interactions customers have with a brand, leading to an overall impression an organization creates with its customers for the lifetime of their relationship—and especially during their purchase journey. Customer experience is, by necessity, closely tied to the employee experience (EX), as employees must be equipped to support the customer experience at every touchpoint.

Since CX must align with customer’s changing expectations, it can be difficult to achieve and maintain. The definition of a positive experience evolves endlessly, as consumers’ (and employees’) expectations are affected by their most recent great experience.

A company that creates a positive customer experience realizes multiple business benefits, including:

• Loyalty. Customers who have a positive experience with a company, especially during the purchase process, keep coming back—and may even become ambassadors for the brand.
• Revenue. By closely monitoring the ever-changing needs that add up to CX, businesses can adjust their strategies and operations as needed and respond to the market—resulting in increased revenue.
• Engagement. Individuals who know and trust a company from having positive customer experiences are more likely to be receptive to that company’s outreach and marketing initiatives—contributing to an increase customers’ lifetime value.

By completely re-imagining how they interact with customers with capabilities spawned by next-generation digital technologies and associated business practices, many companies, such as Apple, Google and Netflix, have ignited a revolution in serving and monetizing their customers. Here’s the way these companies have differentiated their customer experiences:

Data is key to getting CX right. Harnessing it, harvesting the right insights from it and activating against it in an agile manner are critical. These companies have leveraged the data that individuals generate through online buying, browsing, “liking,” swiping, commenting, etc., to understand and even anticipate their customers’ wants and needs—and gotten to the “why” behind their actions—with greater accuracy than has ever been possible before.