Companies of all sizes believe they are delivering high-quality experiences to their clientele. The truth is that many are missing the mark.
Bain & Company surveyed 362 companies and found that 80% believed they delivered a “superior experience” to their customers. When the same question was asked to the customer, only 8% agreed.
This is a structural disconnect between the business and its customer.
PwC’s research found that 73% of all consumers point to customer experience as an important factor when making their purchasing decisions. Conversely, 32% would stop doing business with a brand after just a single bad experience.
Small businesses pride themselves on having a closer relationship with their consumer than bigger corporations are able to. The issue is that they might believe that, but how can they know, and what if they are suffering from the same disconnect.
For a growing business, customer experience can either be the lever that propels it or the weight that slows it down. Ensuring there is a firm grasp on the journey the customer is experiencing is paramount.
The Perception Gap
Most businesses believe they are delivering a better experience than they actually are, and they have no system to know otherwise.
Bain’s survey also found that only 50% of management teams tailor products and services to actual customer needs. Only 30% organize their company processes to prioritize superior delivery, and only 30% maintain effective customer feedback loops to learn from their customers.
Providing customers an opportunity to give feedback in a simple and streamlined way is even more important today. Qualtrics found that only 29% of customers now provide direct feedback after a bad experience, down 7.5 points since 2021. Consumers need to feel that the feedback they give will be acted on, or otherwise they feel it is a pointless endeavor.
For small businesses without a formal feedback process, this silence can be the difference between thriving and stalling. Owners often believe that if no complaints are being brought to the company then customers are happy, when the truth is they are just exiting silently.
What the Experience Gap Actually Costs
The financial impact of a poor customer experience is quantifiable, and it compounds quickly.
Revenue at Risk:
Qualtrics found that $3.7 trillion in global sales are at risk due to bad customer experience. 50% of customers look to cut spending after a poor experience with a company.
PwC finds that 52% of consumers stopped using a brand because of a bad product or service experience. 29% said they had stopped due to poor experience online or in person.
Willingness to Pay:
Qualtrics XM Institute data found that 72% of U.S. consumers say they would pay more for a better experience, even during economic uncertainty. Capgemini found that 81% of consumers are willing to increase their spend for a better experience.
The opposite is also true. When the customer experience falls short, companies lose the potential revenue gains they could have earned in the first place.
Building the Experience That Keeps Customers
Three areas where small businesses can close the gap without large budgets or complex processes in place.
Build a Feedback Loop That Actually Functions
Action: Ask customers directly. After a purchase, after a service call, after a project wraps. A simple question such as “How was your experience?” or “What could we have done better?” creates a channel that most small businesses do not have.
Insight: Asking customers directly is the easiest way to get honest, immediate feedback. By eliminating technology and extra steps for the consumer, you give them one less hurdle to overcome to share their experience.
Turn Your Team into Experience Owners
Action: Do not just train staff. Empower each person to have clear ownership over specific parts of the customer journey such as first response, hand-off, and follow-up. Then tie simple, quantifiable metrics to those touchpoints such as response time and follow-up completion.
Insight: Gallup’s research shows that engaged employees can generate profitability upwards of 23% higher and 10% higher customer loyalty. By providing clear responsibilities, it helps to ensure that no part of the customer journey underperforms.
Design the Experience, Do Not Just Deliver the Product
Action: Map the customer journey from first contact to delivery and follow-up. This will help to pinpoint areas where potential friction exists or where improvements can be made in the process.
Insight: A company that only competes on price or product quality can always be undercut or out-engineered. The customer journey is a process that can be unique, and if managed correctly, can create a moat around a business that is far more difficult to replicate than pricing.
The Question Most Businesses Never Ask
As referenced, Bain’s finding that 80% of businesses feel they deliver superior quality while only 8% of customers agree is a prime example of how expectations can be skewed by simply not asking.
Companies prioritize measuring revenue, tracking expenses, and creating the best product, but many fail to speak to their consumers. A company building its customer experience on what it thinks customers want, without a mechanism to get feedback, is risking a major miss in expectations.
A customer’s experience with a company is the sum of every interaction they have with the business. In a highly competitive market, businesses must ensure that they are setting themselves up to impress and create brand loyalty at every touchpoint with the customer.
References:
Bain & Company; “Keeping Up With Your Customers”: Bain & Company — “Keeping Up With Your Customers”
PwC; “Experience Is Everything: Here’s How to Get It Right”: PwC — “Experience Is Everything”
PwC; “The Loyalty Illusion” 2025 Customer Experience Survey: PwC — “The Loyalty Illusion”
Qualtrics XM Institute; Premium Experience and ROI Data: Qualtrics — “Customers Would Pay More for a Premium Experience”
Gallup; “How Employee Engagement Drives Growth”: Gallup — “How Employee Engagement Drives Growth”
Capgemini; “The Disconnected Customer” cited via Johnny Grow: Johnny Grow — “The CX Price Premium”
SCORE; “Small Business Customer Experience: How to Get It Right”: SCORE — “Small Business Customer Experience”