We choose brands, products and services that express our values, beliefs and social group, so we naturally prefer experiences that reinforce our self-image too.

Take any opportunity you can to reflect your customer’s identity. Simply showing some awareness of their history with your business can make customers feel more valued, and not just a number on a spreadsheet.

As the great Theodore Levitt once remarked, “People don't want to buy a quarter inch drill, they want a quarter inch hole in the wall.”

Every interaction is just a means for customers to achieve their goals. Paying constant attention to your customer’s highest objectives is essential to creating deeply satisfying experiences.

Over half of most customer experiences are left to chance because brands prioritize a handful of major interactions, forgetting the rest.

Look beyond the obvious stages of the customer journey and you’ll discover a treasure trove of opportunities to surprise and delight your customers.

Our satisfaction with anything depends on our expectations. As obvious as this sounds, few pay much attention to how expectations are set and met along the customer journey.

The great news is a little expectation management goes a long way. Often just doing what you say you’ll do (when you say you’ll do it!) is enough to stand out from the competition.

Interactions that soak up our time and energy, are quickly put off or replaced with those that are less demanding. Few things generate more goodwill and repeat business than being effortless to deal with.

Look out for opportunities to reduce time on task, use simpler language and improve convenience and you’ll reap the rewards.

We all instinctively avoid stressful situations, especially when it comes to customer experiences.

Eliminate stress from customer interactions by making choices easy, preventing errors and keeping people informed. You’ll be rewarded with a peerless reputation, and an advantage over rivals who are busy driving their customers up the wall.

Whether eating delicious food, listening to relaxing music or gazing at a beautiful sunset, our five senses are a source of great pleasure for all of us.

Beautiful products are also perceived as easier to use, a phenomenon called the aesthetic-usability effect.

Customer experiences that delight the senses win our hearts and have us coming back for more.

The importance of cultivating personal relationships with customers cannot be over-stated: we more readily buy from a friend than a stranger.

Those experiences that elevate our status — making us feel special or important — are often the most highly valued of all.

A sense of autonomy is a fundamental psychological need. So it’s no surprise we love experiences where we feel in control.

Give your customers more say over where they do things; when they do them; how much they spend; or what a product or service looks like, and watch the needle jump on your metrics.

Maya Angelou once remarked “People may forget what you said — but they will never forget how you made them feel.” She wasn’t delivering a keynote on customer experience, but she could have been.

Carefully considering the feelings we want to evoke — like joy, trust, or relaxation; and which we don’t — like rage, frustration or fear — is a simple yet powerful technique that yields major improvements.