For businesses in all sectors, providing the best possible customer experience (CX) is a must. It’s also an increasingly complex challenge. CX strategies—which encompass everything a company does to deliver high-quality experiences, value, and growth to customers—are changing rapidly, as younger consumers exert more influence and technology reshapes the ways that both B2C and B2B organizations fulfill their customers’ needs. This week, we look at how leaders in various industries can help their organizations create an exceptional CX.

HOW DELIGHTFUL

Advertising and marketing campaigns that deliver “surprise and delight”—from scrappy viral marketing campaigns to big-money Super Bowl commercials—are time-tested tools for wooing new customers. But the importance of delighting customers goes far beyond getting them to buy for the first time. Delight is critical to customer loyalty and business growth, according to McKinsey’s Ankit Bisht and Sangeeth Ram and their coauthors. Through surveys of 25,000 customers across industries, including tourism, insurance, and banking, they found that companies that prioritize customer delight outperform their competitors in both revenue growth and total shareholder returns. Their research also indicates that service excellence and product innovation are the biggest factors in keeping customers happy and coming back to the company. “By prioritizing customer delight and implementing smart, sustainable strategies, companies can unlock new frontiers of service and drive lasting returns without incurring prohibitive expenses,” the authors say.

Lead by satisfying your customers.