Can you remember the last time you had an amazing experience with a business? Maybe everything just… worked. The service was great, the process was smooth, and you actually felt valued as a customer. It felt good, right?
Now think about the last time a business frustrated you so much you wanted to leave a one-star review, or you seriously told people to avoid the business like a plague? We get it.
What made the difference? It wasn’t just the product. It was the entire experience.
Let us paint a picture for you…..
Chioma orders a phone online from an electronics store. Within an hour, she gets a confirmation call, not from a robot, but a real person who verifies her address and asks if she’d prefer morning or afternoon delivery. The phone arrives the next day, properly packaged. Two days later, she gets a message: “Hi Chioma, hope you’re enjoying your new phone! If you need help setting anything up, reply to this message.” When her charger stops working three weeks later, one call gets her a replacement delivered to her office that same day.
Now picture Emeka’s experience with a different store. He orders a laptop. No confirmation. He calls multiple times and all he gets is “We’ll check and call you back.” They never do. When it finally arrives five days late, the box is damaged. He tries to complain, but gets bounced between three different people who all ask him to “explain the problem again from the beginning.” He vows never to shop there again and tells everyone in his life to avoid them too.
Both businesses sold electronics. Both had customer service (one excellent, one frustrating). But only one created an experience worth remembering and recommending.
Here’s why that difference matters: Companies that lead in customer experience grow revenue up to 80% faster than their competitors. Even more noteworthy? 32% of customers will walk away from a brand they love after just one bad experience. Just One.
So what separates a frustrating transaction from an experience that turns first-time buyers into loyal customers who advertise for you for free? And more importantly, why should your business care? Let’s break it down.
What Is Customer Experience?
Customer experience (CX) is the sum total of every interaction a person has with a company throughout their entire journey, from awareness and research to purchase and post-sale support.
Let’s break that down simply. Customer experience, or CX as the business folks like to call it, is basically everything a customer goes through when dealing with your business. And we mean everything.
It’s not just what happens when they call your hotline with a complaint. It’s what they felt when they first saw your ad on Instagram. How easy (or hard) it was to find information on your website. Whether your product actually does what you promised. How they were treated when they walked into your store. What happened after they made the purchase. All of it.
So when someone mentions your business name and their friend says “Ah, those people are good o” or “Abeg, don’t waste your time with them”, that reaction? That’s the result of customer experience.
Customer Experience vs Customer Service: What’s the Difference?
We know what you’re thinking. “But wait, isn’t this the same thing as customer service?”
Not quite, and this is where many businesses get it twisted.
Customer service is when your customer has a problem and your team helps them fix it. It’s answering questions, handling complaints, helping someone track their order, processing a refund. Customer service generally refers to the ways a company assists a customer before or after they purchase a product or service. It’s reactive, something happens, and you respond.
Customer experience is the much bigger picture. It’s an umbrella term that encompasses every interaction a person has with a company. It includes customer service, yes, but it’s also everything else: your marketing, your product quality, how easy it is to buy from you, your delivery process, your packaging, your follow-up. It’s proactive and reactive.
Think of customer experience as building a house. Customer service is like the plumbing, absolutely essential, and when it’s not working, everyone notices immediately. But CX is the entire house: the foundation, the rooms, the lighting, the décor, how it feels to live there, even the neighborhood it’s in.
You could have excellent plumbing (great customer service) but if the roof leaks, the doors won’t close, and the paint is peeling (poor overall experience), people still won’t want to live there.
For Example:
Customer Service moment: A customer calls because their food delivery is late, and your agent apologizes, gives them a discount code, and expedites the order.
Customer Experience: That same customer opens your app (is it fast or slow?), browses the menu (is it easy to navigate?), places an order (how many steps does it take?), waits for delivery (do they get updates?), receives the food (is it still hot? properly packaged?), and maybe leaves a review (did you ask for feedback?). Every single one of those moments shapes their entire experience.
See the difference? Customer service is one room in the house. Customer experience is the whole property.
Why Customer Experience Matters for Your Business
Now here’s where it gets interesting…..and profitable.
Improving customer experience is more than making people happy (though that’s nice). It’s also about making your business money. Real, measurable money. Let us show you how.
1. The Revenue Factor: CX Directly Impacts Your Bottom Line
Remember that stat from earlier? Companies leading in customer experience grow revenue up to 80% faster than their competitors. That’s not a small difference, that’s massive.
Here’s more: CX leaders earn on average $700 million more over three years than businesses that treat customer experience as an afterthought. And before you say “Well, that’s big international companies,” remember that the principle scales. Whether you’re making millions or thousands, better CX means more money in the bank.
Why? Because customers who rate their experience highly (10/10) spend 140% more than those who don’t. When people feel valued, they open their wallets wider. In fact, customers are willing to pay up to 16% more for products and services when the experience is excellent. Research shows that 43% of consumers would pay more for greater convenience, and 42% would pay more for a friendly experience.
Think about your own behavior. Haven’t you paid a bit extra to buy from that seller who always delivers on time and packages things properly? That’s CX at work.
2. The Loyalty Factor: Keep Customers Coming Back
Let’s talk retention. Acquiring a new customer is expensive, we are talking marketing, convincing them to trust you, all of that. But keeping an existing customer? Much cheaper, and guess what keeps them coming back? A great experience.
Delighted customers stay loyal up to 6 times longer. Six times! They’re also more likely to try your other products or services. That customer who started by buying one item? With great CX, they become the customer who buys multiple products because they trust you.
But this is the scary part: 86% of consumers will abandon brands they once liked after only two to three bad experiences. And 32% almost one in three will stop doing business with a brand they loved after just one bad experience. Brutal right?
In a market like Nigeria where customers have more options than ever, you can’t afford to slip up. Your customer can literally order from your competitor on the same app, in the same scroll.
3. The Word-of-Mouth Effect: Free Marketing That Actually Works
You know how powerful recommendations are in our culture. When your aunty tells you about a good tailor, you go. When your friend warns you about a terrible restaurant, you avoid it. When someone posts in the family WhatsApp group about amazing service, everyone takes note.
That’s customer advocacy, and it’s important for businesses.
Businesses focused on CX see 5x higher customer advocacy rates. Five times! These customers become your unpaid marketing team, telling their friends, family, and social media followers about you.
Which is why it’s not surprising that research shows that 65% of customers say a positive experience is more influential than great advertising. You could spend millions on billboards and TV ads, but nothing is better than someone saying “This business treated me well.”
In the age of Twitter threads, Instagram stories, and WhatsApp status updates, one customer’s great (or terrible) experience can reach thousands of people instantly. For free. The question is: what story are your customers telling?
4. The Competitive Edge: Stand Out in a Crowded Market
Let’s be honest, unless you’ve invented something completely new, you probably have competitors. Maybe lots of them. So why should customers choose you over them?
Price? Someone can always undercut you. Location? Someone will open closer. Product? Someone will copy it.
But experience? That’s harder to replicate. A good or bad customer experience can serve as a key differentiator for businesses. It’s your moat, the thing that makes you irreplaceable.
When everything else is equal, people buy from businesses that make them feel valued. Period.
Strategies to Improve Customer Experience in Your Business
So how do real businesses actually improve customer experience? Let’s break it down into practical, actionable steps:
1. Understand Where You’re Messing Up
You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken. Use customer satisfaction surveys, read your Google reviews (even the bad ones), check your DMs and WhatsApp messages. Where are customers complaining? What keeps coming up? That’s where you start.
Nearly 80% of customers say speed, convenience, knowledgeable help, and friendly service matter most, are you delivering on these?
2. Make It Personal
Use the information you have. Leverage data to create more relevant experiences through targeted marketing and customized recommendations. If someone always orders jollof rice with extra chicken, remember that. If a customer prefers evening deliveries, note it. Small personalizations make people feel seen. Nobody wants to be treated like transaction #4,582.
3. Map the Customer Journey
Walk through your business from your customer’s perspective. Plot out the entire customer lifecycle to visualize how customers interact with your brand and identify areas for improvement. From the moment they hear about you to the moment they (hopefully) recommend you to a friend, what does that journey look like? Where does it get frustrating? Where do you excel? Fix the frustrating parts first.
4. Empower Your Team
Give your staff the tools and authority to solve problems quickly. Provide employees with the complete customer view and the autonomy to solve problems without excessive red tape. Nothing kills CX faster than “Let me ask my manager” for every small issue. Train your team, trust them, and let them make customers happy without jumping through hoops.
5. Use Technology Smartly
A fast website, automated order updates, easy payment options, chatbots for simple questions; technology should make things easier, not harder. Use scalable infrastructure to manage the mix of apps and data needed to orchestrate a seamless digital experience. If your tech frustrates customers (slow site, clunky app, complicated checkout), fix it.
6. Make Payments Effortless
This is a critical area many Nigerian businesses overlook: payment processing. Your customer is ready to buy, and then… the payment page is slow. Cards fail. No confirmation message. You’ve just lost a sale.
Research shows that 43% of consumers would pay more for greater convenience, and easy, fast payments are convenience. Payment tools like Credo make it easy and fast to accept payments online with features like payment links and tracking, removing friction from the buying process. When customers can pay you effortlessly, they are bound to trust you more.
7. Actually Listen to Feedback
When customers tell you something isn’t working, believe them. Link satisfaction responses to your customer management system to drive immediate follow-up and improvements. Close the loop, if someone complains, follow up to show you’ve made changes. This builds trust like nothing else.
8. Be Consistent Everywhere
Build an omnichannel strategy by managing touchpoints like social media, email, and online chat to ensure customers receive the right information conveniently. Whether someone reaches you on Instagram, WhatsApp, calls your hotline, or walks into your physical store, the experience should feel cohesive. Don’t be amazing online but terrible in person, or vice versa.
Conclusion
In today’s market, where customers have endless options and zero patience for nonsense, customer experience isn’t optional anymore. It’s not the cherry on top, it’s the whole cake.
Remember Chioma and Emeka from the beginning? Same product, wildly different experiences, completely different outcomes. One business gained a loyal customer and free marketing. The other lost a customer and probably gained negative reviews.
Every interaction is an opportunity. Every touchpoint either builds trust or erodes it. Every customer either becomes an advocate or a cautionary tale in someone’s group chat.
The good news is, improving customer experience doesn’t require a massive budget or fancy technology. It requires intention. It requires giving a damn. It requires seeing your business through your customers’ eyes and asking honestly: “Would I want to buy from me?”
Because at the end of the day, customers will forget what you said, they’ll forget what you sold them, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.
So, what kind of experience is your business creating?
Ready to improve your customer experience? Start with effortless payments. Try Credo’s payment solutions and remove friction from your customer journey today.
