Many big companies hire “mystery shoppers” to pose as customers and report back on the experience. This gives management valuable, unbiased opinions as to what it’s like to go through the purchasing process and deal with the company’s personnel, policies, and stores or websites.

If you were to hire a mystery shopper to do the same for your company, what do you think they’d report?

For the recently-released Customer Experience Tipping Point survey, 8,000 consumers in four countries proved a point that should be obvious to business owners everywhere: Customer experience is extremely important. In fact, consumers are very quick to both penalize and reward a brand based on their experience.

Customers have high expectations
As one of the researchers pointed out, having a strong brand recognition and a stellar product is not enough. Customer experience is the tipping point.

If the experience you provide is positive, 77% of respondents said that this alone is enough to motivate them to choose to buy from you.

But if the experience is negative, watch out! Many customers will leave after just one bad experience, and 64% said they have avoided a brand because of a bad experience they had in the past year. On top of that, the research showed that every touchpoint in the buying process matters. People expect a smooth, seamless experience from beginning to end.

Are you at least covering the basics?
I’m constantly shocked by the number of businesses, especially small businesses, that don’t answer their phone, return emails or act like they actually want the business. Depending on your industry, just doing this might put you ahead of the competition!

For example, my husband and I recently bought a new home, and then had extensive renovations done before moving in. To make these renovations happen I reached out to a number of contractors. More than half didn’t return my call within 24 hours; about 25% never responded to my “I need a bid” calls or emails at all. And one contractor took the time to submit a bid, but then waited so long to answer my questions that by the time he got back to me I had hired someone else.