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What is customer experience (CX)?

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Overview

See how to deliver rich, hyper-personalized customer experiences.

Customer experience (CX) is a customer’s perception of a brand based on every interaction across the entire lifecycle—from first awareness to onboarding, service, and usage.

It includes all touchpoints, such as:

  • Making purchases
  • Customer support interactions
  • Billing and communications
  • Follow-ups

Customer experience is not defined by a single interaction, but instead how those interactions connect into a personalized journey—one that helps build trust and customer intimacy over time.

Customer Experience

Why does customer experience matter more after the sale?

It is true that customer experience is critical to winning customers in the first place—it shapes first impressions, builds trust, and influences the decision to buy. However, CX becomes even more important afterward because growth does not stop at acquisition. Growth depends on what happens during onboarding, service, support, renewal, and every interaction in between.

When those experiences feel disconnected or generic, customers lose confidence quickly. When they feel relevant, consistent, and easy to navigate, customers are more likely to stay, spend more, and develop a stronger relationship with your brand.

That is where the business impact shows up:

  • Organizations spend 6–7× more on acquiring customers than retaining them[1]
  • 80 percent of revenue growth comes from existing customers in leading companies[2]
  • 20–70 percent of new customers leave within the first 100 days[3]

Even small improvements in customer experience have measurable impact, as a 5% increase in retention can increase profits by 25–95 percent.[4]

Organizations that prioritize CX see:

  • 41 percent faster revenue growth
  • 51 percent higher retention rates[5]

What shapes the customer experience?

Customer experience is built across the full lifecycle:

  1. Awareness
  2. Consideration
  3. Purchase
  4. Onboarding
  5. Usage and support
  6. Retention and advocacy

Each stage includes multiple interactions across channels, teams, and systems.

For customers, these interactions should feel:

  • Connected
  • Personalized
  • Consistent
  • Easy to navigate

When experiences break between stages, trust drops and churn increases.

What are the CX management fundamentals?

Effective customer experience management requires a comprehensive framework that encompasses:

  1. Journey mapping and analysis
    • Document all customer touchpoints
    • Identify pain points and opportunities
    • Map emotional and functional needs
  2. Experience design
    • User-centered design principles
    • Emotional journey mapping
    • Service blueprinting
  3. Omnichannel and customer choice
    • Choice of customer omnichannel communications 
    • Customer self-service design
    • Employee experience enablement
  4. Voice of Customer programs
    • Systematic feedback collection
    • Real-time sentiment analysis
    • Closed-loop response systems

What are common challenges in delivering customer experience?

Siloed systems and teams

Many organizations struggle to deliver consistent experiences due to internal complexity.

  • 43 percent of organizations cite lack of cross-team alignment as their top CX challenge[6]
  • 38 percent cite siloed systems and data[6]

This leads to:

  • Disconnected communications
  • Inconsistent messaging across channels
  • Duplicated effort across teams
  • Limited visibility into the full customer journey

Static, one-way interactions

Traditional customer experience relies on static content and predefined journeys. This approach no longer meets expectations. Customers now expect experiences that respond to their behavior, not just deliver information.

  • 71 percent of consumers expect real-time personalization[7]
  • Interactive content drives 53 percent higher engagement and 2× better conversion[8]

How does AI transform customer experience?

AI is transforming customer experience by helping organizations move from static, one-way interactions to connected, intelligent conversations across the customer lifecycle. Instead of relying on generic content and predefined journeys, organizations can use AI to make experiences more relevant, timely, and responsive to customer context.

This matters because customer experience now depends on continuity. Customers expect brands to understand where they are on the journey, respond with the right information, and create interactions that feel connected rather than fragmented across channels or departments.

AI helps support that shift by improving how organizations create content, act on customer signals, personalize communications, and orchestrate experiences across the lifecycle.

What is the difference between customer experience and customer service?

Customer service focuses on support interactions and is just one (important) part of the entire experience. The concept of customer experience includes every interaction across the lifecycle, including:

  • Onboarding and activation
  • Communications and notifications
  • Product and service usage
  • Post-sale engagement

What does modern customer experience require?

Modern CX requires organizations to move from isolated touchpoints to connected experiences across the full lifecycle.

This includes the ability to:

  • Unify customer data across systems
  • Orchestrate journeys across channels and teams
  • Deliver personalized, compliant communications
  • Respond to events in real time
  • Continuously improve using data and feedback

How do companies improve customer experience?

Improving customer experience involves connecting data, journeys, and communications across the full lifecycle to create consistent, relevant interactions. Key strategies include:

1. Connecting experiences across the full customer lifecycle

Customers expect continuity from onboarding through renewal. When experiences break between teams or systems, trust drops and churn increases.

  • Align marketing, service, and operations
  • Maintain context across interactions
  • Design full, continuous lifecycle journeys

2. Personalizing interactions using real-time data

Customers expect experiences that reflect their behavior, preferences, and history.

  • Use customer data to inform interactions and deliver relevant messages at the right time
  • Adapt experiences based on context

3. Moving from static journeys to conversational experiences

Static content and one-way communication no longer drive engagement. Focus on:

  • Two-way, anychannel interactions
  • Event-driven communications
  • Continuous engagement across channels

This shifts isolated touchpoints into connected customer conversations.

4. Using AI to scale and optimize experiences

AI helps teams generate personalized content faster, automate workflows, identify next best actions, and improve decision-making across the journey. It enables more relevant, timely, and consistent experiences without increasing complexity.

5. Unifying content, communications, and customer data

Customer experience breaks down when systems are disconnected. Improvement requires:

  • A single view of the customer
  • Consistent messaging across channels
  • Centralized content and asset management
  • Integrated workflows across teams

6. Continuously analyzing and improving the experience

Customer experience requires ongoing optimization. Track performance across the lifecycle, analyze behavior and feedback, and refine journeys based on insights to stay relevant as expectations evolve.

What are some examples of key customer experience touchpoints across industries?

Customer experience varies by industry but follows the same principles. Here are some examples of particularly important industry-specific CX elements.

Banking and financial services

  • Personalized, compliant statements and notices
  • Real-time loan and account updates
  • Financial wellness engagement

Insurance

  • Claims lifecycle updates across channels
  • Policyholder self-service portals
  • Customer alerts for coverage changes and next steps

Healthcare

  • Digital patient onboarding and intake
  • Personalized health communications
  • Secure provider collaboration

Utilities and public sector

  • Proactive notifications and alerts
  • Regulatory-compliant communications
  • Self-service portals for customers and citizens

How does OpenText support customer experience at scale?

OpenText offers a comprehensive suite of CXM solutions designed to help businesses create exceptional customer experiences.

OpenText™ Experience Cloud is a powerful customer experience platform for building personalized and engaging digital experiences. It enables businesses to create and manage content, deliver targeted messages, and analyze customer behavior across all channels.

This offering encompasses:

OpenText™ Experience Aviator™ helps businesses create compelling content and optimize customer experiences. It uses generative AI, image AI, and content analysis to automate content creation, personalize customer interactions, and streamline workflows.

This solution includes:

  • Content creation (LLM) and intelligent tagging
  • Customer behavior tracking
  • Journey analytics
  • Performance dashboards
  • Predictive modeling

OpenText™ Fax Aviator™ brings AI-powered automation to digital fax, helping you turn documents into actionable workflows faster. It reduces manual handling, improves routing and data capture, and helps teams work more efficiently in high-volume, regulated environments.

Automation features include:

  • Document summarization and routing
  • Key fields extraction
  • Workflow initiation
  • Secure, compliant fax processing

These are just a few examples of how OpenText can help you elevate your customer experience. By leveraging our expertise and innovative technology, you can transform customer interactions into lasting relationships.

What is the future of customer experience?

Customer experience is evolving from static journeys to continuous, real-time interactions.

Key trends include:

  • AI-driven personalization and automation
  • Event-based journey orchestration
  • Unified platforms replacing fragmented tools
  • Increased focus on retention and lifetime value

Organizations that unify data, journeys, and communications will be better positioned to:

  • Retain customers
  • Improve efficiency
  • Deliver consistent, trusted experiences

The future of customer communications: From AI to journey-driven

Get IDC’s practical framework for journey-driven engagement as well as governance recommendations to keep AI-powered communications secure, compliant, and trusted.

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Resources

  • Manutan

    European B2B retailer provides exceptional customer communications globally with OpenText™ Exstream™

  • SAP

    An enterprise software leader delivers consistent, compelling content to global audiences with OpenText™ Digital Asset Management

  • University of Kansas Health System

    Complex care provider boosts fax transmission success rate to almost 100% with OpenText™ RightFax™ Connect

  • Nationwide Building Society

    Financial services provider streamlines customer communication and accelerates content creation for millions of members across the UK

  • OpenText

    Enterprise IT leader enhances digital experiences with OpenText™ Experience Cloud, introducing a modern platform and rich, personalize

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