When thinking about customer experience (CX) from a marketing perspective, it helps to think like a customer about the things we value ourselves. Examples of customer experience are all around us. They live in the interactions we have with brands, stores, restaurants, and facilities every day. They help us to feel valued as customers and show us which brands have our best interests at heart.
For some brands, a great customer experience comes naturally. They’ve written the proverbial book on customer experience examples because they’ve woven great experiences into the fabric of their culture.
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Customer Experience in the Service Industry
When searching for strong examples of customer experience, the service sector (such as restaurants, salons, pet care providers, and delivery services) can really help put things into perspective.
It’s a part of life that almost everyone has interacted with, often multiple times a week. Since service employees engage with countless people every day, it’s no wonder that both standout and poor customer experiences occur here regularly.
Consider Chick-fil-A as an example. The company demonstrates what an exceptional customer experience in the service industry looks like. They are widely recognized as one of the most customer-focused brands, consistently reflecting their core values in action.
Chick-fil-A elevated their customer experience when a Maryland customer used over 50,000 reward points to feed the homeless. She exchanged the points for 100 sandwiches to donate to a local shelter, and the restaurant contributed cookies to complete the meal. In doing so, they not only supported her generosity but also actively participated in the initiative..
Tip: Download our Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) Customer Experience Trends Report for free.
Are you truly delivering a standout customer experience that keeps your clients coming back?
In today’s competitive landscape, exceptional customer experience (CX) isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a crucial differentiator. From the personalized interactions of BMW showrooms to Starbucks’ consistent and predictable service, the brands that thrive are those who anticipate customer needs, respond swiftly, and create memorable journeys at every touchpoint. Whether it’s leveraging digital tools like live chat and AI-powered monitoring in healthcare, offering seamless online interactions in real estate, or crafting highly personalized engagement in telecom, the lesson is clear: customers remember how you make them feel. By embracing these strategies, your business can build stronger loyalty, inspire advocacy, and elevate every interaction into an opportunity for growth. Don’t let another customer slip away due to an ordinary experience when you have the power to transform it into something extraordinary.
Take your customer experience to the next level today.
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BMW Customer Experience Example
The premium car brand BMW needs little introduction. Customers are drawn to the brand for its legacy of performance and craftsmanship, as well as the prestige it conveys. BMW’s approach to customer experience has consistently set a benchmark for the industry.
Still, BMW recognizes that there’s always potential for enhancement, which is why it undertook research to enhance its digital touchpoints and attract even more drivers to its vehicles.
Like many other companies, BMW faced challenges in building a unified customer persona across multiple channels, devices, and locations. The brand wanted to make its showroom experience more interactive and captivating, which required deep consumer insights and understanding key triggers along the customer journey.
Not an easy task, given BMW’s global footprint and the countless unique customer experiences happening simultaneously.
By investing in comprehensive analytics, social listening, and behavior tracking across channels, BMW successfully reimagined both its showroom and online interactions. This transformation included more tailored offers (like reminders for lease expirations or test drive invitations), smoother online purchasing, and faster processing times.
Customer Experience in Real Estate
In recent years, there has been a shift that places the power of home buying directly into the hands of the customer. Today’s buyers expect to research neighborhoods, browse listings, and compare prices and property details at their own pace.
Research shows that most of the home search and agent selection process now happens online, long before buyers ever contact a real estate professional. This shift has presented new challenges for agents, as they often enter the conversation much later in the buying or selling journey.
To adapt, agents are embracing technology to market properties and engage with clients. They utilize platforms like Zillow and Realtor to allow buyers to explore homes on their own schedule. Live virtual tours are being used to simulate open houses, and live chat or AI-driven chatbots help qualify leads 24/7.
In today’s real estate market, providing a subpar customer experience is not an option. Agents who stay ahead of trends and meet client expectations are best positioned to grow their reputation and business.
Real estate reading Tips:
- Keller Williams Realty – Meltwater customer story
- Juwai IQI – Meltwater Customer Story
- Knight Frank x Meltwater | Customer Story
- Meltwater x FCT – Customer Story
Azure Customer Experience Example
As a company that provides the backbone for enhanced digital experiences, Azure enables brands to design and deliver stronger, more seamless solutions.
At the same time, Microsoft has focused on improving its own ecosystem, with the Azure Networking Managed Service Provider (MSP) program standing out as a key initiative.
This program was created to support customers in scaling their most critical business applications. By connecting with certified MSPs, organizations can deploy more advanced applications on the Azure platform. This reduces the effort of sourcing reliable networking partners and further increases the value Azure delivers to its users..
Customer Experience in Healthcare
Does customer experience in healthcare even matter? You bet it does! Despite it being an essential service, patients have choices when it comes to their healthcare, insurance, and prescriptions. Clinics, hospitals, private practices, pharmacies, and insurance companies need to make their patient experiences as seamless as possible to stand out for the right reasons.
The image of the healthcare industry has been plagued by long wait times, complex billing processes, costly services, and poor communication. Many healthcare facilities and providers are trying to make positive changes to support a better patient experience. Examples include:
- Online accessibility to patient records
- Automated appointment reminders
- Automated prescription refills
- Online appointment scheduling
- Emailing providers directly
- Online patient intake paperwork
- AI-powered wearable devices for routine monitoring
This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it does illustrate several potential opportunities to make your customer experience in healthcare better than ever.
AT&T Customer Experience Example
Improving the customer experience doesn’t always mean going above and beyond. Sometimes, it can be as simple as showing your customers you’re listening — like this AT&T customer experience example.
As part of an industry that often gets a bad rap, AT&T aimed to show their customers just how important they are.
They set out to make more than 2,000 personalized thank-you videos once they reached 2 million fans on social media. This was a great way to show support for the telecom brand, plus they personalized each thank you instead of opting for a generic message.
Customer Experience at Starbucks
A gold standard in service, the customer experience at Starbucks is usually predictable and on-brand.
Customers know they’re going to pay more than average for their drinks, wait in long drive-through lines, and probably have their names misspelled on their cup.
But the coffee brand didn’t get to where it is with its recipes alone. It’s all about the customer experience strategy (CX strategy).
Customers get personalized experiences every time by having their names written on their cups. They get remarkably fast order fulfillment times. App users earn points on every order. And thanks to the famous pay-it-forward chains, some customers may even get their Starbucks order for free
Apple Customer Experience
Looking for more examples of exceptional customer experiences? Apple has become a benchmark for customer satisfaction, loyalty, and premium service.
A notable example of Apple’s strategy is its vision to turn traditional retail outlets into vibrant “town squares.” The company sees its brand as more than just a place to sell gadgets—it’s about enriching people’s daily lives through innovative technology. This perspective also explains why Apple is gradually removing the word “store” from its branding.
These redesigned spaces are designed to offer a comfortable and inviting environment for everyone. In addition to displaying products and accessories, they feature meeting areas, coding sessions, workshops, and other hands-on activities. This approach allows visitors to explore Apple’s products—and the brand itself—in engaging, memorable, and interactive ways every time they enter.
Customer Experience at the Airport
An airport isn’t the first place you think of when it comes to examples of great customer experience, but some airlines are challenging this notion — and winning.
Take Southwest Airlines, one of the best customer service experience examples in the industry.
A Southwest Airline passenger was flying to Denver to see his grandson for the last time. However, heavy traffic caused him to miss his flight by about 12 minutes. Southwest Airlines pilot held the plane, allowing the passenger to board.
In fact, Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher has been credited with saying they are in the customer service business and just happen to fly airplanes. If you need further proof of their best social media customer service experience examples,
Airbnb Customer Experience Example
Airbnb isn’t a luxury hotel like the Ritz-Carlton, where every stay is guaranteed to be high-end. Still, as part of the hospitality sector, providing a poor customer experience is not acceptable.
Although the company doesn’t own the properties listed on its platform, it puts considerable effort into making sure guests have a positive experience. This includes delivering excellent customer support, actively listening to feedback, and promptly addressing guests’ concerns.
To make this possible, Airbnb ensures availability for both guests and hosts across multiple channels, such as email, phone, SMS, social media, and in-app messaging. According to a recent case study, the company responds to most phone calls within a minute and resolves the majority of email inquiries within 24 hours.
Customer Experience in Higher Education
When many think of customer experience, schools and universities don’t often come to mind. But customer experience in higher education can affect enrollment rates, recruiting, and student retention, all of which have an impact on profitability and education quality.
Universities need to be able to meet the growing needs of diverse student populations. Some may argue that better customer experience in higher education is more important now than ever before, given the rising costs of tuition, the student debt load, and the idea that college isn’t necessary to earn a decent living.
To compete for students and quality talent, schools can double down on a CX strategy that will help them to differentiate themselves beyond sports teams and tuition prices. Areas to focus on include:
- Omni-channel communications for enrollment, tuition payments, refunds, book purchases, class schedules, events, etc.
- Multiple points of contact beyond the telephone
- Personalized experiences for students to feel prepared for joining the workforce
- Easy ways to collect, analyze, and act on student feedback
- Convenient payment options for meals, books, supplies, or other on-campus purchases
- Mobile app to navigate campus, manage class schedules, track their degree progress, and more
Treating students like customers can help universities start thinking in terms of CX and make impactful changes.
Creating Better Customer Experiences with THESPINGAGE
No company wants to end up on a round-up of bad customer experience examples. And when you have access to real-time data that matters, you won’t have to!
From airline customer experience management to customer experience in higher education, brands and companies of all shapes and sizes thrive on making their customers happy.
Learn more about what makes your customers tick and the experiences they expect from their chosen brands. See how you compare to your competitors and learn how you can deliver better experiences using real data, not hunches.
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