The framework · Customers & Growth
12 Customer Experience
11 sub-categories. The three numbers on each are the typical opportunity in that area across businesses — not your result.
Time8.0/10Financial7.7/10Automation9.0/10
These three numbers are researched cross-business benchmarks for the area — the typical opportunity available in it. They are not your score, not a forecast, and not a promise. What is actually critical depends on your business, which is what the audit is for.
12.1Discovery/first contact
Time6/10Financial7/10Automation8/10
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- What this is
- The first moment someone encounters the business — site, listing, call, shopfront, referral.
- Why it matters
- First contact sets the expectation everything else is measured against, and it is usually the least-supervised part of the business.
- You have a problem here if
- You have never been through your own enquiry process as a customer would.
- What to automate
- Automate the consistency: instant response, clear next step, and the same information wherever someone lands. Then have a person walk the journey quarterly — automation makes it repeatable, it does not make it good.
12.2Buying experience
Time7/10Financial8/10Automation9/10
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- What this is
- How easy it is to actually purchase once someone has decided.
- Why it matters
- Friction at the point of purchase destroys demand that has already been paid for. This is the most wasteful place in the business to lose someone.
- You have a problem here if
- Buying requires a phone call during business hours.
- What to automate
- Online booking or ordering, saved details, clear pricing, immediate confirmation, and payment that works on a phone. High automation value and generally quick to implement.
12.3Onboarding
Time9/10Financial8/10Automation10/10
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- What this is
- What happens in the first days after someone buys.
- Why it matters
- Nine for time and ten for automation. Onboarding determines whether a customer succeeds, and early success predicts retention, referral and repeat purchase better than anything later.
- You have a problem here if
- New customers ask questions that every new customer asks.
- What to automate
- Almost fully automatable: welcome sequence, expectation-setting, scheduling, document collection, and a checklist that both sides can see. Build it once and every future customer benefits.
12.4Communication
Time9/10Financial7/10Automation10/10
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- What this is
- Keeping the customer informed through delivery without being asked.
- Why it matters
- Nine for time, ten for automation. Most "where is my job?" contact is caused by the absence of proactive updates, and answering it consumes real capacity.
- You have a problem here if
- A meaningful share of your inbound calls are status enquiries.
- What to automate
- Automated status notifications at defined milestones, plus a self-service view of progress. This is one of the clearest cases in the framework where automation reduces work and improves experience simultaneously.
12.5Delivery experience
Time7/10Financial8/10Automation7/10
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- What this is
- The experience of receiving what was bought — timing, condition, handover, first use.
- Why it matters
- Delivery is where promises are tested. It is also where a good sales process most often gets undone.
- You have a problem here if
- Delivery quality depends on who happens to be doing it.
- What to automate
- Standardised delivery checklists, automated scheduling and confirmation, and a triggered post-delivery check. The human parts of handover matter; the coordination around them should not be manual.
12.6Ease and convenience
Time8/10Financial8/10Automation9/10
▸
- What this is
- How much effort the customer has to expend to do business with you.
- Why it matters
- Ease is a stronger driver of loyalty than delight. Customers rarely leave because of one bad experience; they leave because everything is slightly harder than it needs to be.
- You have a problem here if
- Customers have to repeat information they have already given you.
- What to automate
- Remove re-entry through integrated systems, pre-filled forms, saved preferences and one place to see everything. Every re-keyed field is a small tax you are charging your own customers.
12.7Responsiveness
Time9/10Financial8/10Automation10/10
▸
- What this is
- How quickly the business responds when a customer reaches out.
- Why it matters
- Nine for time, ten for automation. Responsiveness is the most frequently cited difference between a business customers recommend and one they tolerate.
- You have a problem here if
- Response time varies from ten minutes to three days depending on workload.
- What to automate
- Automated acknowledgement with a realistic timeframe, routing to the right person, escalation on breach, and reporting on actual response times. Acknowledgement is not an answer — do not let automation pretend it is.
12.8Support
Time9/10Financial8/10Automation10/10
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- What this is
- Help available after purchase, and how good it is.
- Why it matters
- Support quality drives retention and review sentiment disproportionately. It is also the function that scales worst without deliberate design.
- You have a problem here if
- Support is whoever is free, working from memory.
- What to automate
- High automation potential: a searchable knowledge base, triage and routing, suggested responses drafted from previous resolutions, and automatic follow-up on closure. Keep a fast human path — automated support with no exit to a person is a retention risk, not a saving.
12.9Complaint resolution
Time8/10Financial8/10Automation8/10
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- What this is
- What happens when something goes wrong and the customer says so.
- Why it matters
- A well-resolved complaint produces a more loyal customer than a problem-free experience. A badly handled one produces a public review that costs future customers.
- You have a problem here if
- Complaints are handled ad hoc and are not recorded anywhere.
- What to automate
- Automate the process, not the empathy: logging, ownership, deadlines, escalation and root-cause categorisation, with reporting on recurring causes. The conversation should be human and fast.
12.10After-sales experience
Time8/10Financial7/10Automation9/10
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- What this is
- Contact and value after the transaction is complete.
- Why it matters
- The after-sales window is when referrals, reviews and repeat purchases are cheapest to obtain, and it is the period most businesses go silent.
- You have a problem here if
- Your last contact with most customers was the invoice.
- What to automate
- Strong automation fit: scheduled check-ins, maintenance or renewal reminders, review requests, and useful content tied to what they bought. Low effort, high and compounding return.
12.11Overall customer effort
Time8/10Financial8/10Automation9/10
▸
- What this is
- The total effort across the whole relationship, viewed as the customer experiences it.
- Why it matters
- Individual touchpoints can each be acceptable while the whole is exhausting. Effort measured end to end is what predicts churn.
- You have a problem here if
- Each department reports good scores and customers still leave.
- What to automate
- Instrument the whole journey: capture effort or satisfaction at multiple points into one customer record, and report the journey rather than the touchpoint. Walk it yourself once a quarter as well.
Category totals
Time 88/110 · Financial 85/110 · Automation 99/110. The sum is the official roll-up; the averages above exist so categories of different sizes can be compared.