Why Customer Experience Has Become a Marketing Priority
Marketing can create an expectation, but the experience has to live up to it.
A brand might promise convenience, expertise, personal service or simplicity through its advertising and communications, but customers judge those promises through what actually happens when they interact with the organisation. They may discover the brand through a social media post, visit its website, speak to someone from the sales team, make a purchase, contact customer support and receive follow-up communication afterwards. Each of those interactions contributes to the overall impression they form.
This is why customer experience has become increasingly difficult to separate from marketing. Marketing is no longer only responsible for attracting attention and communicating a message. It also plays a role in setting expectations about what the customer should experience, which means there needs to be a strong connection between the promise a brand makes and the experience it delivers.
For marketing teams, this creates a much broader responsibility. A successful campaign can bring people to a brand, but what happens next can influence whether they become customers, return in the future or recommend the organisation to someone else.
Marketing creates the first expectation
The relationship between marketing and customer experience often begins before a customer has any direct interaction with a company.
An advertisement can create an impression of a product. A website can communicate a particular tone. A social media account can make a brand appear helpful, knowledgeable or approachable. Even the way an organisation responds to comments and questions can influence what customers expect from the relationship.
These communications create a kind of promise, whether the organisation intends them to or not.
If a brand presents itself as premium, customers will expect a premium experience. If it positions itself around simplicity, customers will expect processes to be straightforward. If it emphasises personal service, customers will notice when their interactions feel impersonal.
This does not mean every customer interaction has to be perfect. It means the experience needs to make sense in relation to what the brand has communicated.
Marketing sets the expectation. The customer experience gives that expectation meaning.
When there is a significant gap between the two, customers notice.
Customers experience the whole brand, not individual departments
Organisations are often structured around departments. Marketing has its responsibilities, sales has its own, customer service operates separately and digital teams may manage different parts of the customer journey.
Customers do not experience the organisation in quite the same way.
From their perspective, all of these interactions belong to the same brand.
A customer who sees an engaging campaign but then encounters a confusing website is unlikely to separate the two experiences by department. Someone who receives excellent marketing communications but struggles to get a response from customer support will still associate that frustration with the brand.
This is one reason customer experience needs to be considered beyond the marketing department itself.
Marketing teams can identify where expectations are being created, but delivering against those expectations often requires collaboration across the organisation. Sales, customer service, product, technology and operations can all influence the experience customers ultimately receive.
The more connected these functions are, the easier it becomes to create an experience that feels coherent.
Every touchpoint contributes to brand perception
Customer journeys have become increasingly complex. People may encounter a brand through search, social media, advertising, an influencer, a recommendation, a review or an event before they ever visit the company’s website.
After that, the journey can continue through email, sales conversations, online purchasing, mobile applications, customer service and post-purchase communications.
Not every interaction will have the same level of importance, but together they contribute to how the customer sees the brand.
This makes consistency important, although consistency does not mean making every interaction identical. The tone, information and service should make sense as part of the same brand experience, while still being appropriate to the particular channel.
A customer might expect a social media post to be informal and conversational, while a legal document or customer service communication may need a more formal approach. What connects those experiences is not identical wording, but a recognisable understanding of what the brand represents and how it treats its customers.
A great campaign cannot compensate for a poor experience
One of the challenges facing marketing leaders is that marketing activity can sometimes create demand faster than the rest of the organisation can handle it.
A successful campaign may increase website traffic, enquiries or sales, but if the customer journey is difficult to navigate or internal teams are not prepared for the increase in demand, the campaign can expose weaknesses that were already there.
The problem is not necessarily the campaign itself. It is the disconnect between generating interest and being ready to respond to it.
This is why customer experience needs to be considered during campaign planning rather than after a campaign has launched.
Marketing teams can ask questions such as:
- What happens after someone responds to the campaign?
- Is the next step clear?
- Can the website or sales process handle the expected demand?
- Does the customer receive the information they need?
- Is the experience consistent with the promise made in the campaign?
These questions can reveal issues that would otherwise become customer complaints later.
Customer experience can strengthen brand trust
Trust is built through repeated experiences.
A customer may initially choose a brand because of its advertising, reputation or recommendation from someone else, but continued trust depends on whether the organisation consistently delivers what it promises.
This is particularly relevant when customers have many alternatives available to them. A strong product or competitive price may attract someone initially, but the experience surrounding that product can influence whether they stay.
Consider a simple example. Two companies may offer similar products at similar prices. One has a straightforward website, clear communication, helpful support and an easy returns process. The other makes customers work harder to find information and resolve problems.
The difference may have little to do with the product itself. It is the experience around the product that starts to influence preference.
For marketers, this means brand trust cannot be built entirely through communications. Communications can establish the expectation, but repeated experiences reinforce or weaken it.
Customer feedback should influence marketing decisions
Customer experience also provides a valuable source of insight for marketing teams.
Reviews, complaints, customer service conversations, surveys and social media discussions can reveal things that traditional campaign data might not show. They can highlight recurring questions, frustrations, misconceptions and reasons customers choose or reject a brand.
Marketing teams should therefore look beyond campaign performance when evaluating how the brand is performing.
If customers repeatedly say that a product is difficult to understand, for example, the problem may not simply be a customer service issue. It could indicate that the marketing message, website content or product positioning needs to be reconsidered.
Similarly, if customers consistently praise a particular part of the experience, that insight could potentially become part of the brand’s wider communication.
Customer feedback becomes much more valuable when it moves in both directions. Marketing communicates with customers, but customers also provide information that can improve marketing.
Personalisation needs to be useful
Personalisation has become an important part of the customer experience conversation, particularly as technology allows organisations to use more customer data.
Customers may appreciate recommendations, content and offers that are relevant to their interests. However, personalisation becomes less effective when it feels excessive, inaccurate or disconnected from the customer’s actual needs.
The availability of data does not automatically mean that every piece of information should be used.
Marketers need to consider whether personalisation genuinely improves the experience or simply makes the brand appear more intrusive. The quality of the information matters as well. If a customer receives recommendations based on outdated or incorrect information, the technology can undermine rather than strengthen the relationship.
The strategic question is therefore not simply how much personalisation a business can provide, but where it genuinely helps the customer.
Digital experience is now part of brand experience
For many organisations, the digital experience is inseparable from the brand.
A website is not simply an information resource. It may be the first place a customer encounters the company, the place where they compare products, the platform where they make a purchase or the place they go when they need support.
The same applies to mobile applications, email journeys, online accounts and social media.
Small frustrations can accumulate. A slow website, unclear navigation, broken links, complicated forms or difficult checkout process can all affect how customers perceive the organisation.
These details may not appear in a traditional marketing campaign report, but they can have a significant influence on whether marketing activity translates into meaningful customer relationships.
This is why marketing teams increasingly need to work closely with digital and technology teams. Bringing people to a digital experience that does not work properly creates a problem that advertising alone cannot solve.
AI is changing customer experience too
Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly relevant to customer experience, from automated customer support and recommendation systems to personalised content and predictive analysis.
Used thoughtfully, these technologies can make it easier for customers to find information, receive relevant recommendations or resolve straightforward issues quickly.
But automation also creates new expectations.
If a customer is repeatedly directed to an automated system when their problem requires human understanding, the experience can quickly become frustrating. Similarly, an AI-generated response may be technically accurate but still feel inappropriate for a sensitive situation.
This is where human judgement becomes important.
Not every interaction needs a person, but organisations need to understand where automation is useful and where human involvement adds value.
The objective should not be to remove human interaction simply because technology makes it possible. It should be to use technology where it improves the experience while preserving the human element where customers need understanding, reassurance or more complex support.
Customer experience needs to be measured differently
Marketing teams are used to measuring campaigns through metrics such as impressions, clicks, engagement, leads and conversions. These measures remain useful, but they do not necessarily tell the full story of the customer relationship.
Customer experience can involve different measures, including satisfaction, retention, repeat purchases, customer effort, complaints, reviews and customer feedback.
The right measures will depend on the organisation and the customer journey it is trying to improve.
More importantly, measurement should lead to action.
If customer satisfaction falls at a particular stage of the journey, the organisation needs to understand why. If customers repeatedly abandon a particular process, the issue needs to be investigated rather than simply recorded as another data point.
Good customer experience measurement is not about collecting more numbers. It is about understanding where the experience can be improved.
This requires marketing leaders to look at customer data alongside commercial and operational information rather than treating experience as a separate subject.
Employees are part of the customer experience
The connection between employee experience and customer experience is also important.
Employees are often the people who deliver the brand promise directly. Sales teams, customer service representatives, account managers and other customer-facing employees can have a significant influence on how the organisation is perceived.
This creates a challenge when internal communication and external marketing tell different stories.
If a company communicates that it values personal relationships but employees do not have the information or resources required to support customers effectively, the external message becomes difficult to maintain.
Marketing therefore benefits from stronger connections with internal communications and leadership teams. Employees need to understand the brand promise and have the tools and support required to deliver it.
The customer experience is ultimately shaped by what happens inside the organisation as much as by what is communicated outside it.
Customer experience can become a competitive advantage
Products and services can often be copied. Features can be matched and prices can be changed. Customer experience can be more difficult to replicate because it is built across many different parts of an organisation.
This does not mean that every company needs to create an extraordinary or highly elaborate experience. Sometimes the most valuable improvements are simple: making information easier to find, reducing unnecessary steps, responding more quickly or communicating clearly when something goes wrong.
The important thing is understanding what customers value and building the experience around those priorities.
A company does not need to be remarkable at everything. It needs to understand which parts of the experience matter most to its customers and make those areas work particularly well.
When something goes wrong, communication matters
Customer experience becomes particularly visible when something does not go according to plan.
A delayed delivery, technical problem, service failure or billing issue can quickly become a test of the relationship. Customers do not necessarily expect organisations to avoid every problem, but they do expect clear communication about what is happening and what will be done to resolve it.
This is where marketing, customer service, PR and corporate communications can overlap.
The way an organisation responds to a problem can influence reputation well beyond the individual customer involved. Poor communication can create frustration, while clear and timely communication can help maintain trust even when the underlying problem cannot be resolved immediately.
This is one reason customer experience should be considered alongside reputation management and communications strategy.
Customer experience should have a place in marketing strategy
For marketing leaders, the shift towards customer experience represents a broader change in how marketing is understood.
The role of marketing is not limited to generating awareness or driving a transaction. It contributes to the expectations customers bring into their relationship with a brand, and those expectations influence how subsequent experiences are interpreted.
A marketing strategy should therefore consider what happens after the campaign.
What does the customer see next? What information do they receive? How easy is it to take the next step? Does the product or service deliver what the campaign promised? What happens if something goes wrong?
These questions bring marketing closer to the wider customer journey and encourage teams to think about the relationship rather than the individual communication.
The future of customer experience and marketing
Technology will continue to change the way customers interact with organisations. AI, automation, personalisation and new digital channels will create more opportunities to make experiences faster and more relevant.
At the same time, customers will continue to judge brands based on familiar things: whether they understand their needs, whether promises are kept, whether communication is clear and whether the organisation makes it easy to do business with them.
For marketing teams, this means customer experience cannot simply sit somewhere outside the marketing strategy. It needs to be part of the conversation from the beginning.
A campaign should create an expectation that the organisation is prepared to fulfil. Customer data should be used to understand where the experience can improve. Brand positioning should be reflected in the way customers are treated, not only in advertising. Technology should be introduced where it genuinely adds value rather than simply because it is available.
Ultimately, the strongest relationship between marketing and customer experience comes from making sure the story a brand tells is supported by what customers actually experience.
A brand promise only becomes meaningful when customers can experience it for themselves.
Explore Customer Experience and Marketing Strategy at SHARP Festival 2027
The relationship between marketing, brand experience, customer expectations and business strategy will be part of the wider conversation at SHARP Festival 2027, taking place from 10–14 May 2027 in London.
The festival brings together marketing, PR, communications, brand and business professionals to explore the ideas and practical strategies influencing how organisations connect with their audiences, build stronger brands and create meaningful customer relationships.
Explore the programme and discover more at sharpfestival.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is customer experience important in marketing?
Customer experience influences how people perceive a brand after interacting with its marketing. When the actual experience supports the expectations created by marketing, it can help strengthen trust, satisfaction and longer-term customer relationships.
How are marketing and customer experience connected?
Marketing communicates a brand’s value and creates expectations, while customer experience determines how those expectations are experienced in practice. The two therefore need to work together to create a coherent relationship with customers.
What is the relationship between brand experience and customer experience?
Brand experience describes the broader impression people develop through their interactions with a brand, while customer experience focuses more specifically on the customer’s journey and interactions with the organisation. They overlap across many touchpoints.
How can marketing teams improve customer experience?
Marketing teams can use customer research, feedback, behavioural data and collaboration with sales, customer service and product teams to identify problems in the customer journey. They can then ensure that communications, messaging and campaigns reflect the experience the organisation is capable of delivering.
How does AI affect customer experience?
AI can support customer experience through automation, personalised recommendations, faster access to information and analysis of customer behaviour. Human oversight remains important where interactions are complex, sensitive or require empathy and judgement.
How can customer experience be measured?
Organisations can use measures such as customer satisfaction, customer effort, retention, repeat purchases, complaints, reviews and customer feedback. The most useful measures depend on the customer journey and the organisation’s objectives.
Can customer experience influence brand reputation?
Yes. Customer interactions contribute to how people perceive an organisation and can influence reviews, recommendations and wider public perceptions of the brand. Customer experience is therefore closely connected with brand reputation.
Why should customer experience be part of marketing strategy?
Marketing creates expectations about a brand, and those expectations influence how customers interpret their subsequent interactions. Considering customer experience as part of marketing strategy helps organisations connect their communications with the reality of the customer journey.
