What does great customer experience (CX) really look like? And how can businesses use real-world examples to transform ordinary interactions into loyalty-building moments? In this blog, we’ve collected 10 of the best customer experience examples to show you what good, bad, and exceptional CX looks like in practice—plus how you can apply those lessons to your own customer journey.
What is customer experience and why is it so important?
When customers choose where to spend their money, they weigh many factors: product quality, pricing, convenience, and brand reputation all matter. But one element consistently makes or breaks the decision: customer experience.
Customer experience (CX) refers to the overall perception customers form about your brand based on every interaction they have with you—from initial research on your website, to the ease of checkout, to post-purchase support. It’s not just about the product or service itself, but about how effortless, consistent, and personalized the journey feels.
And the data couldn’t be clearer: 99% of consumers say customer service is one of the most important factors when deciding which companies to buy from. That means even the best product can lose customers if the experience around it falls short.
But what does great customer experience look like in practice? What leads to poor customer experiences? And, most importantly, how are organizations optimizing experiences across every stage of the customer journey, and how can you apply these CX best practices to your own business?
What does exceptional customer experience look like?
Exceptional customer experience means customers feel confident in your brand’s ability to deliver at every stage of their buying journey. That means they have a smooth, intuitive, and pleasant experience during:
- The discovery phase: Customers can easily find key information about your company, products, and services. And when they reach out to customer service with a query, they receive a prompt response.
- Purchase and checkout: Once a customer is ready to buy, it’s easy and seamless for them to make a purchase using the payment methods of their choice, and with flexibility and control over how their purchase is delivered.
- Post-purchase service and support: If something goes wrong, customers can quickly reach out for a replacement, repair, or clear self-service guidance. Problems become opportunities to build trust.
Most importantly, all of these stages are at their best when brands are proactively engaging customers and anticipating their needs. For example, no customer wants to have to reach out to a support representative to get basic information like shipping updates. They expect that information to be proactively offered once they’ve made a purchase.
Across all these stages, customers are looking for:
- Quick responses and resolutions: Customers are 2.4x more likely to stay loyal to brands that solve their problems quickly.
- Personalized experiences: 88% of e-commerce customers are more likely to shop with brands that offer personalized experiences.
- Contextual conversations: Customers expect brands to recognize them and their history across every channel. They don’t want to re-explain the same issue to multiple agents, and they want interactions to feel seamless and consistent—no matter where the conversation happens.
The key takeaway? These elements can’t exist in isolation. True CX excellence comes from stitching them together into a connected, consistent journey. Customer service plays a big role, but it’s only one part of the bigger picture. Customer experience covers every touchpoint—and when it’s done right, the whole journey feels effortless.
What does bad customer experience look like?
Just as great CX builds loyalty, poor CX can just as quickly erode it. When any stage of the journey breaks down—or when interactions feel siloed and disconnected—customers notice. And they often don’t give second chances.
In fact, 32% of customers say they’ll abandon a brand after just one bad experience. 86% say they’ll abandon a brand after two bad experiences—even if that brand was one they previously trusted.
That means even a single misstep can have lasting consequences.
The most common CX pitfalls include:
- Long wait times with no clear resolution in sight.
- Having to repeat the same issue multiple times to different agents.
- Rigid automated systems that can’t solve real problems.
- Miscommunications that leave customers feeling unheard or undervalued.
At its core, bad CX makes customers feel like their time and concerns don’t matter.
The bottom line is simple: today’s customers expect fast, accurate responses from agents who understand who they are and why they’re reaching out. They want seamless interactions that reduce friction—not systems that create more of it. And when brands fail to deliver, customers don’t just get frustrated—they leave.
10 examples of great customer experience across industries.
So, a smooth, seamless, and consistent customer experience across all touchpoints is key. But how does this look in practice across each customer journey? And how are organizations in your industry innovating to exceed customer expectations—and set new CX standards?
1. Easy access to product information.
The customer journey often begins with research. If answers aren’t easy to find, customers can lose trust before they even make a purchase.
Example: A consumer electronics company revamped its website to feature detailed product pages, compatibility charts, and tutorial videos. They also built out a searchable FAQ that addressed common questions. Customers praised the brand for being transparent and helpful, while support teams saw fewer repetitive inquiries.
2. Rapid issue resolution.
There’s a reason why time to resolution is such a common key performance indicator in the contact center. No customer likes to be kept waiting, so the faster you can resolve issues and answer queries, the better experience your customers will have.
Example: Wingo Swiss, a subsidiary of leading telco group Swisscom, modernized its CX and contact center solutions by placing a major focus on rapid resolution times. By using Webex Contact Center, Wingo Swiss empowers agents with streamlined, intuitive tools and can better prioritize incoming queries and route them to the best agents for the job. The result? Queries are now answered up to 10 seconds faster on average.
Learn more about Wingo Swiss’ CX journey.
3. Streamlined checkout and payment processes.
Even excited buyers can walk away if checkout feels complicated or restrictive. In particular, recent research shows that complicated e-commerce checkout processes involving multiple fields or forms lead 17% of shoppers to abandon their carts, while 9% will abandon a transaction due because they can’t use their preferred payment options.
Example: An online fashion retailer found that customers were abandoning carts during payment. By reducing the number of required fields and adding options like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal, the retailer transformed checkout into a quick, one-step process. Customers described it as “frictionless,” and the brand saw a clear increase in completed orders.
4. Personalizing customer interactions
Personalization is no longer optional—customers expect experiences that feel tailored to them.
Example: A grocery chain launched an app that delivered coupons based on each shopper’s past purchases. When customers entered the store, they’d receive timely, relevant offers. Shoppers not only used the coupons more often, but they also commented that the experience felt thoughtful and convenient—turning routine errands into more positive interactions.
5. Meeting customers on their preferred channels.
Every customer will have their own preferences on how they want to speak with your service and support representatives. If you can’t communicate with them on their preferred channels, you risk delivering a subpar customer experience.
Example: When Carnival Cruise Line, one of the world’s most popular cruise lines, found the communications landscape changing, it realized it needed to rethink its customer experience strategy to ensure it could offer customers their choice of channels for support and service.
Using Webex Connect, Carnival Cruise Line can now communicate with customers seamlessly across SMS, rich media text, video chats, and even broadcast communications.
Learn more about Carnival Cruise Line’s CX journey.
6. Proactively meeting customer needs.
Great customer service isn’t just reactive—it anticipates problems before they arise.
Example: An airline introduced automated text and email updates for flight changes, baggage updates, and boarding reminders. Instead of forcing passengers to check apps or stand in line at a gate desk, the airline kept them informed every step of the way. Customers appreciated the proactive communication, which reduced stress and created a more seamless travel experience.
7. Context-sensitive interactions across channels.
Switching between channels shouldn’t mean starting over. Customers expect brands to recognize them wherever they engage.
Example: Veridian Credit Union struggled to keep track of customer conversations as it expanded nationwide. With Webex Contact Center’s Customer Journey widget, agents could see a complete history of each member’s interactions across phone, chat, and email. That context allowed agents to offer more personalized, efficient support—turning what was once a frustrating experience into a smooth, connected one.
Learn more about Veridian Credit Union’s CX journey.
8. Seamless, convenient returns and repairs.
Returns are inevitable—but they don’t have to be painful.
Example: A home goods retailer simplified returns by automatically sending pre-paid shipping labels with every online order. If an item was faulty, customers could also receive a replacement as soon as they initiated the return, instead of waiting weeks. This convenience turned potential frustration into a positive impression, with customers noting that the company “made things right without hassle.”
9. Turning happy customers into brand advocates.
Delighted customers can be your best marketers if you make it easy for them to share their experiences. The benefits of this are significant, with some research suggesting that word of mouth is among the most powerful forms of marketing. In fact, Nielsen found that 88% of consumers around the world say they trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising.
Example: A beauty brand added referral codes and social sharing buttons to its checkout confirmation page and follow-up emails. Customers who loved their purchases could instantly recommend the products to friends on Instagram or TikTok. The program not only brought in new buyers but also deepened loyalty—customers felt proud to spread the word about a brand they trusted.
10. Collect and respond to customer feedback.
Customer expectations evolve, and companies that listen stay ahead.
Example: Springfield Health, a multi-specialty medical group based in Illinois, understood that continuous improvement was vital in delivering the very best patient experiences over the long term. Using Webex Contact Center, Springfield Health can centralize all its customer service and experience tools and get real-time insights into KPIs across the whole patient journey.
Comprehensive reporting helps Springfield Health:
- Reduce average wait times by 70.78%
- Decrease average speed of answer by 66.49%
- Cut call abandonment rates by 43.56%
Learn more about Springfield Health’s CX journey.
The takeaway.
Across industries, the best customer experiences share common traits: they’re fast, proactive, personalized, and connected. These examples show that great CX isn’t built on one isolated touchpoint—it’s built across the entire journey, with every interaction reinforcing trust and loyalty.
How Webex can help you achieve CX excellence.
Getting the visibility you need to understand and improve every touchpoint is a major challenge. But it can be made simpler with robust contact center and Communications-Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) solutions.
Webex Contact Center empowers customer service agents with everything they need to optimize CX and service across every major customer touchpoint and communication channel.
With an easier way to design and manage customer journeys, you can streamline customer service, deliver great experiences on the channels your customers use most, and create the kind of customer engagement that boosts retention and revenue.
To learn more about how to integrate customer service into a winning CX strategy, get in touch with our experts.
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