A quick guide to creating an exceptional customer experience
Where would we be without our customers?
The truth is, businesses like yours and mine would not exist. I know for a fact Zest for Life wouldn’t be here without demand for training, development and coaching, loyal clients and generous referrals.
To keep customers happy and motivated to use your products and services, you have to really focus on their needs. Only this week, I visited a local supermarket to do my weekly shop. It was late evening, and I was one of four customers in the store - equalling the number of staff. The self-service tills were open, but with a trolley-full, I needed to use the manned check-out. There was one open, so I duly loaded my shopping onto the belt. Then I stood there for what felt like an eternity, waiting for a member of staff to serve me. A total of three members of staff walked past, looked at me, and continued walking. Eventually, a fourth person arrived and served me. They were pleasant enough, but by that point I didn’t want to talk. I was angry and fed up. I felt ignored, unimportant and disappointed.
If you are not clear on what you want your customers to experience, how can you expect your team to deliver an exceptional experience? Leading exceptional service is crucial in every organisation, whether it’s a service or a product you provide. It also applies to online shopping where the experience is at distance. With such strong competition, you have to find ways of creating a pleasant, helpful and seamless experience to make customers come back for more. Otherwise, they can and will go elsewhere.
In this blog, we will touch on the critical areas leaders need to focus on to create an exceptional customer experience. If you would like to drill down into this area in more detail, please get in touch. It’s one of our favourite subjects to talk about!
Getting things right first time is a priority
The Institute of Customer Service runs a UK Customer Satisfaction Index twice a year. Their July 2025 report found that customer satisfaction had increased by 1.5 points compared to the previous year, with the overall score at 77.3 out of 100. However, 26% of customers said they needed to use more than one channel to achieve their objective. This shows that improving the customer experience and getting things right first time needs to be our priority.
Give your customers ‘the feels’
Research by a Harvard Business School Professor found that 95% of purchasing decisions are emotional. This means we have to think less about practicalities and more about how your products and services make a customer think and feel. How do you want your customers to react, and what do you want them to do after interacting with your business?
One of the key features of the Exceptional Leadership Makes Sense development programme is examining how the sensory experience can impact a customer’s overall perception of a business. We look at how this affects our emotions and influences purchasing choices.
It’s always an interesting session when we dig into what a typical customer sees, hears, smells, tastes and feels when they cross the threshold. We all see and experience things very differently, so what an employee notices every day might be far from what the customer actually experiences. Mystery shoppers can be a real help here - more on that later.
Create the best possible customer experience
You might consider your business to have a 5-star experience, but your customers may feel differently. The only way to create an exceptional customer experience is to design it with care and attention, considering the customer at every step. Test out the journey yourself and ask if you feel valued and satisfied as the customer should.
Know how to handle customer complaints
Perhaps the biggest driver of dissatisfaction is how your team handles problems and complaints. Do this badly, and you can guarantee the bad reviews will follow. Do it well and it builds satisfaction and loyalty. It only takes one bad review to damage a reputation. You want people to notice exceptional service, not poor service.
Customer complaint handling emerged as the lowest dimension (59.8) in the ICR report. Two factors that influence this are:
Effectiveness in reducing problems and getting it right first time
Showing genuine care and understanding of customer needs.
The way companies deal with and handle complaints is a critical part of the emotional journey. Our Leadership development programme covers how to turn a disgruntled customer into a loyal fan in a few simple steps. There’s more on this subject in my book.
Measure and reward success
Once you and your team are clear on the customer experience standards you want to consistently deliver, you cannot rest on your laurels. Regular monitoring and review tells you what you’re doing well and where you can improve. Bringing in mystery shoppers to review and assess the customer experience is a great idea and can reveal a lot about how far you and your team have come. Constant reviews keep everyone on their toes and striving to deliver the best possible experience - every single time.
How Zest for Life supports the customer experience
Our Exceptional Leadership Makes Sense programme focuses on the customer experience in one of six valuable development modules. We also offer a two-day programme solely to help teams create and deliver an outstanding customer experience in every aspect of their role. Book a tell me more chat to discover more, or visit the programmes section of our website.