If we were to ask you the last time you had a really great experience as a customer, it probably wouldn’t take you long to come up with the story of how the lasting impression of the experience made you happy and satisfied. And the same goes for a poor customer experience, too — you could probably think of the story and reason within seconds, and how the feeling afterward was just the opposite. You probably felt angry, upset, annoyed, frustrated, or any combination of these negative emotions.

A positive customer experience not only results in making your customer happy, but it can also lead to additional revenue. The best marketing money can buy is a customer who will promote your business — because they’ll refer their friends and family to you, free of charge.

The best way to define customer experience is as the impression you leave with your customer, resulting in how they think of your brand, across every stage of the customer journey. Multiple touchpoints factor into the customer experience, and these touchpoints occur on a cross-functional basis. The two primary touchpoints that create the customer experience are people and product. Are you blown away by the performance of the product? Are you delighted by the attention a customer support rep gives you to help solve your problem?